Today's FFA: From master-planned community to farm

Lauren Campbell, a sophomore at The Woodlands High School, smooches "Annabelle" at Conroe ISD's Ag Facility. The traditionally rural FFA sees membership booming with suburban students like Campbell.

Lauren Campbell, a sophomore at The Woodlands High School, smooches "Annabelle" at Conroe ISD's Ag Facility. The traditionally rural FFA sees membership booming with suburban students like Campbell.

Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance

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Madi Stankevitz, 15, a freshman at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works her Dark Cross pig, "Mo", at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Madi Stankevitz, 15, a freshman at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works her Dark Cross pig, "Mo", at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance

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Madi Stankevitz, 15, a freshman at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works her Dark Cross pig, "Mo", at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Madi Stankevitz, 15, a freshman at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works her Dark Cross pig, "Mo", at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance

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Madi Stankevitz, 15, a freshman at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works her Dark Cross pig, "Mo", at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Madi Stankevitz, 15, a freshman at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works her Dark Cross pig, "Mo", at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance

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Lauren Campbell, 16, a sophomore at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works "Annabelle", her Red Brangus heifer, at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Lauren Campbell, 16, a sophomore at The Woodlands High School and a member of The Woodlands Future Farmers of America, works "Annabelle", her Red Brangus heifer, at the Conroe ISD Ag Facility on Tuesday.

Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance

Today's FFA: From master-planned community to farm

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"Annabelle," declared the wooden name plaque hanging over the heifer's stall. Lauren Campbell, a sophomore at The Woodlands High School, cooed and rubbed the Red Brangus' nose as if the 1,100-pound beast were a kitten.

"Don't lick," she commanded. Annabelle paid no attention, her big, rough tongue heading for Campbell's face. Campbell laughed. Annabelle, she says, has a "diva personality": tempestuous under normal circumstances, but all business when it's showtime. On Sunday, when Campbell parades Annabelle past judges at the Houston Livestock Show, she expects the heifer to behave.

Campbell, a suburban kid, is what the FFA - formerly Future Farmers of America - calls a "nontraditional member." Increasingly, the group is securing its future by making itself appealing to members like her.

In November, the Texas FFA Association logged more than 100,000 members, setting an all-time record not just for Texas, the biggest FFA state in the union, but for any state in the country. Despite ag-teacher cutbacks in many urban districts, nontraditional FFA chapters and students abound. School districts such as Katy and Galena Park operate agriculture facilities (read: barns) so that suburban FFA members have a place to raise their livestock.

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And the Texas county with the most FFA members? It's Harris - home to Houston, Texas' largest city and the site of the world's biggest livestock exhibition.

Campbell is one of roughly 10,200 FFA members who will compete at this year's livestock show. (Another 6,000 or so are members of 4H.) The vast majority of those kids, says Leroy Shafer, livestock show chief operating officer, are rural, reflecting the FFA's roots.

When the organization was born, in 1928, nearly two-thirds of Texans lived on farms or ranches. These days, less than 17 percent of the state's students are from rural areas.

In 1988 the group re-branded itself as the National FFA Organization. The idea wasn't that farming had no future. It was, as the FFA website explains, to "reflect the growing diversity of agriculture."

These days, members aren't just future farmers, but also future biologists, wildlife managers, florists, mechanics and small-animal lab managers. (Campbell plans to be either a large-animal vet or an ag teacher.) Urban and suburban schools, where lots of members don't raise animals, are said to be particularly strong in the FFA's "leadership events" - competitions in areas such as "public speaking" and "job interview."

"I tell kids that it's like KFC," says Kevin Berrigan, one of two ag teachers at The Woodlands College Park High. "It used to be Kentucky Fried Chicken. But they wanted to be a little more modern."

Dad does his share

Annabelle lives at Conroe ISD's ag facility, which is shared by two high schools, The Woodlands High and The Woodlands College Park. In summer, Campbell spent five hours a day with her calf, teaching her to walk on a halter.

Now that school is in session, it's Campbell's dad who stops by the barn to feed Annabelle most weekday mornings. (FFA dads joke that the letters stand for "Fathers Feeding Animals.") But Campbell is hardly off the hook: She spends an hour and a half or two hours each evening feeding Annabelle dinner and cleaning her stall.

Soon, Campbell told a visitor recently, she would start preparing Annabelle to be shown at the Houston Livestock Show. Before her March 16 date with the judges, Annabelle would enjoy the bovine equivalent of a day at the spa: Campbell would brush and blow-dry her, clip her hooves and clean her feet.

That's not how most Woodlands high-school students spend their time.

"At my school most people are more focused on fashion," says Campbell. "They're not like, 'Let's go pick up cow poop!' They're more like, 'I gotta get my nails done.'"

'Pure Americana'

But at the Conroe ISD barn, it's easy to see ag's appeal. Like Campbell, the other teenagers are outdoorsy, wholesome-looking and enthusiastic: farm kids who just happened to grow up in master-planned communities.

Madi Stankevitz, a freshman at The Woodlands High School, is raising three pigs, one dark cross and two light crosses. "His name's Mo," she said, motioning to the dark cross, who weighs around 250 pounds. "His favorite treat is Tums, and he likes to have his belly scratched."

He'aven Menard and Abby Jones are best friends, both juniors at The Woodlands College Park. Menard is raising a goat; Jones, a Hampshire lamb. They plan to be roommates at Texas State and join the collegiate FFA there. After graduation, they want to team-teach high-school agriculture classes - just like their own teachers.

Berrigan, who is gung-ho about ag and FFA, makes that life seem thrilling.

"Agriculture is the backbone of every great society," he says. "FFA isn't super-Hollywood. It's real. It's tangible. It's pure Americana. It's what we're supposed to be like."